RoChu: One With Me
by RomanticCommunists
Summary: Thrice, Ivan would ask Yao to become one with him. Thrice, Yao would say no. Each time, it would break them both a little more.
1. What Did You Do To Panda!

"Ivan."

The bear stared back at Yao with wide, unblinking eyes, its paws folded innocently in front of it.

"Ivan. I know you're not Panda."

Yao felt stupid now. On his way home, he had rambled incessantly about every nation and how much he hated them all, how Kirkland was becoming more of a douche by the day, and how Kiku had grown strangely distant.

"I liked him much better when he was a child, aru," he had sighed. "Before he started acting all...weird. And speaking of weird, Braginsky – Ivan, he wants me to call him by his first name, aru, like we're close friends or something, but I hardly know the man. Anyway, he keeps showing up everywhere. Sometimes I get home and he's just sitting there! Eating my rice! He even pretended to be you once, Panda. I could be talking to him right now for all I kn—"

Only then had he realized.

Now, his lip slightly curled in both annoyance and amusement, Yao stood on his toes and yanked off the head of the panda suit, revealing, to no one's surprise, a very sheepish-looking Russia.

"How did you know?" He blinked, perplexed. He emerged from the costume, somehow still bundled up in his usual winter gear. He didn't seem to mind the heat.

"Well, pandas are not so tall." As the nations stood face to face, Yao once again scolded himself for not noticing sooner. Ivan towered over him, so much so that Yao had had to struggle considerably to reach the head of the panda suit. "Besides, I wouldn't fall for the same trick twice."

"But you already have," Ivan pointed out. He grinned, an unsettling gleam in his violet eyes.

"Oh, wipe that smile off your face," Yao snapped, but his irritation only made Ivan's smile widen.

"Say, dinner should be ready about now, _da_?"

"Dinner!" Yao practically shrieked. "You think I'm going to invite you into my house? You have stalked me for _months_ , Ivan, and I still do not understand why you won't leave me alone!"

"You don't have to invite me in, but I'll still join you."

"I'll lock the door." Yao backed slowly away.

"The magic metal pipe of pain is very useful for breaking down doors, _da_?" Ivan smiled sweetly.

"You…!" Yao stared at Ivan, speechless. The Russian man looked right back, his smile unchanging.

After a long moment of silence, Yao sighed and turned and continued his way back home.

He followed an overgrown trail through the isolated bamboo thicket. Though his cities were ever-growing, China made sure to preserve the small pockets of nature on the outskirts of every metropolis. Being close to nature calmed him. Surrounded by beauty, he was able to forget about the chaos his people were slowly descending into, if only for a few moments.

It was quiet here, save for Ivan. He could hear the Russian man strolling along behind him; the earth seemed to crunch like snow beneath his feet at his every stride. He was content to be ignored, humming a whimsical tune under his breath, something from a ballet, perhaps.

Yao didn't mind him much when he was like this. Come to think of it, he wasn't sure why everyone else was so terrified of Ivan. True, there was something _off_ about him, but the other nations weren't exactly normal, either.

Soon, Yao found himself getting out of breath. A chill crept beneath his skin, spreading through his veins like a frigid tide rising from the winter sea. A familiar ache returned to his chest, throbbing with a steady pulse. He cursed under his breath. _Not now. Not in public._

"You're shivering," Ivan noted. "Are you cold?"

Yao's already leisurely pace had slowed considerably, and he and Ivan were now walking side by side. Ivan had stopped, brow furrowed in concern as he peered at Yao. It was still summer, the setting sun bathing the air in a dry, almost visible heat, yet the smaller nation had unconsciously wrapped his thin arms around himself as though braving through the worst of Siberian blizzards.

"I'm fine, aru."

Ivan persisted. "If you are cold, you should tell me. I'm Russian—I know all there is to know about the cold, _da_."

"Why would I be cold?! It's thirty degrees out here, aru," Yao snapped. He was growing more irritable by the second, and he felt the smallest twinge of remorse for lashing out at Ivan. _Why should I care if I offend_ him _?_ he thought indignantly. He began walking again, trying not to seem so exhausted.

For the rest of the journey, a stiff silence hung in the air.

After what felt like hours, the path lead the two men to China's house. As he pushed the door open, Yao realized that he'd forgotten to lock it again. No wonder Ivan always managed to get in.

"You can come in, I guess. There's _xiao long bao_ in the kitchen, aru."

Before Ivan could reply, Yao had already run off. "You can wait for me there!" he called.

He dashed into his bedroom and grabbed the long, decorated pipe resting on his bedside table. His hands trembled as he filled the pipe-bowl and lit the opium lamp. Almost instantly, the cloying smoke invaded his lungs, choking him from the inside. Finally, he could breathe again.

Only then did he begin to regret his decision.

The drug would not wear off for hours, and Ivan was bound to notice. Yao had been doing everything he could to keep his addiction from the other nations. That bastard Kirkland knew, of course, and so did his crony, France, but that was it. Russia was growing stronger, and China could not afford to let him know that he had become the feeble, sickly nation he was. Yao squeezed his eyes shut, vainly attempting to silence his thoughts.

Then the high kicked in and Yao ceased to think at all.


	2. The Forgotten Promise

There was something wrong with Yao.

He had come into the plainly set table with a wide, vacant smile, served dinner, and sat down not across from his guest, as was the custom, but right next to Ivan, as though they were the closest of friends. His earlier hostility was gone, replaced with a dazed sort of euphoria. For once, Ivan found that he was not the strangest person in the room, and he said as much to Yao.

"Strange? I'm not acting strange. I'm just happy that you're here, aru," he replied cheerfully with a mouth full of food. "Living alone is so lonely, aru. Kiku never visits anymore. That asshole Kirkland took Xiao Chun. Mei...well...she's struggling too, aru. She shouldn't have to see me like this." Yao said all this with a glassy smile, not quite looking at Ivan. "So it's nice, aru, not eating alone for once. I always say, there is no point in making good food if you have no one to share it with, aru."

The food was certainly good. As he listened to the Chinese man ramble on, he found himself popping the juicy pork-stuffed buns into his mouth almost involuntarily. As Yao's tangent grew more and more nonsensical, Ivan stopped listening and just stared.

When Russia was still young, he had seen China in person for the first time, though that had not been his name back then. Ivan remembered sitting in the snow after another lost battle, arms wrapped around his knees, shivering as silent sobs racked his body. He remembered the carriage that had come into view, carried on the shoulders of four men. He remembered how it had stopped in front of him...

 _The Celestial Empire drew back the curtains and peered out curiously at the tiny nation. Ivan stopped crying immediately and simply gaped at the foreign man. Garbed in golden robes that distinguished him as royalty, an ornate headpiece shielded his delicate features from the biting wind. Ivan could not stop staring at his eyes. They seemed to glow, like a flame reflected on the surface of a copper coin, and they held so much warmth in them, more warmth than Ivan had ever known._

 _"_ _Are you alright?" he asked, brow slightly furrowed in concern. His voice was soft, but firm. "What is your name?"_

 _Ivan realized that he was still sitting on the ground. The older nation extended a hand, and tentatively, Ivan took it. His body aching, he pulled himself to his feet, drawing himself to his full height. Even then, he must have looked laughably small—a trembling little nation wrapped in a scarf too big for him._

 _"_ Da _, I am fine, and my name is Russia," he declared as confidently as he could. Yao smiled, and Ivan was at a loss for words again. He realized that he was still gripping onto the older nation's hand, trying to hold onto his warmth. Reluctantly, he let go._

 _"_ _It is my honour to meet you, Russia. You may call me the Celestial Empire." Yao gave him a small nod in greeting. "I hope you are not badly hurt."_

 _Mutely, Ivan started to shake his head before some unknown urge prompted him to blurt out, "I may have lost this fight, but I won't lose next time, or ever again! One day I'll see you again, Celestial Empire, and I'll be the strongest nation in the world, even stronger than you."_

 _Stunned by his boldness, Yao stared at the tiny nation, lips slightly parted, and Ivan immediately flushed, ready to take back what he had said. But then Yao laughed, a musical sound springing from a crack in his mask of composure. "Well, little Russia, when that happens, I hope we can be friends."_

 _The carriage moved towards the distance, fading into the blur of the snow. The Celestial Empire was gone as quickly as he had appeared, and Ivan was left alone, his frostbitten lips spread in the widest smile._

* * *

 _He would go on to fight more battles, and he would lose more than he won. He would get hurt and beaten time and time again, and through it all the winter would rage on. Sometimes his sisters would be with him, but more often they would vanish for years at a time._

 _But he would grow stronger. He would grow used to pain, and begin to embrace it. Though he still hated the cold with every fibre of his being, he learned to use it to his advantage. And though his mind was slowly broken over the years, though he was far from the naive little boy Yao had met centuries ago, Ivan never forgot the vow he had made._

 _And when he was sure that he was strong enough, he began to search for the Celestial Empire._

 _They didn't call him that anymore, Ivan learned. He was China now, and these days, he went by Wang Yao. So Ivan travelled south to see him, the man who had inspired him to fight all those years ago without saying much at all._

 _Yao wasn't hard to track down. Ivan first found him in a street side diner, complaining about the food to an uneasy looking waiter._

 _"_ _This is too bland, aru," he was saying, gesturing dramatically at the bowl of soup in front of him. "Tell the chef it could use more ginger."_

 _Ivan watched the Chinese man with growing intrigue. He had certainly changed, just as Ivan expected. He wore no elaborate robes and no headpiece, his hair falling to the small of his back in a simple but immaculate braid. There was no entourage of servants surrounding him—only a couple of pandas. When Yao stood to leave the restaurant, Ivan realized that the older nation stood several inches shorter than him. No longer was he the distant, untouchable giant Ivan once thought he was._

 _But that didn't make Ivan any less afraid to approach him._

 _Instead he followed the Asian nation as he made his way through town. As afraid as he was to get close to him, he couldn't bear to let him out of his sight, either._

 _But, seeming to sense that he was being followed, Yao turned around suddenly, his eyes meeting Ivan's._

 _Once again, Ivan was rendered speechless; from a distance, Wang Yao had born little resemblance to the Celestial Empire Ivan once idolized, but his eyes? His eyes hadn't changed a bit._

 _"_ Privyet _," Ivan breathed._

 _His voice, tainted with an unfamiliar accent, caught Yao's attention. He studied the blond, violet-eyed foreigner, fascinated._

 _"_ Ni hao, _"_ _he greeted, though his eyes betrayed confusion. "Have we met?"_

 _Realization hit Ivan like an icy gust of wind, with a brutality that threatened to dislodge his heart from his chest. I'm a stranger to him._

 _"_ _Nyet, I don't think so," he lied. Wrapping his scarf more tightly around his throat, Ivan slipped back into the crowd, leaving Yao in the middle of the road, alone and utterly mystified._


End file.
